Lesson learned

I only have a minute or two while M is taking a shower and singing to Fern. Fern can't stand if there's a door between her and Mika, so Fern just patiently waits in the bathroom for M. It gives me two minutes to try and catch up.

We were told that dog parks were frowned upon for our dog because, while Fern is well behaved, other dogs may not be. However, we live in an apartment, so we have no backyard where she can run and chase the ball. So we took her Sunday at 0700 and we were the only ones. Well, until a 14 year old lab came and laid at the fence and watched Fern run. It wore the poor boy out and he fell asleep while she was still playing.

Anyways. We've been taking Fern for a walk twice a day, but she's been having a hard time on the walks. She'll heel perfectly, then pull hard unexpectedly. At camp the emphasized how important it is to not let your dog pull against the leash ever. So every time she pulls, I stop and wait for her attention and we start all over again. This morning she was great, but last night we walked for 30 minutes and made it 1 mile max. I called CA (I love them for having a person solely for after care) and she said that it's nerves and trying to adjust to so many new things at once. I agree with her, but it makes it very hard to take her for exercise when she doesn't want to walk around any sights, sounds or smells right now.

Okay, long story short. We took her to the dog park, where there were 5 dogs, all of them smaller than Fern. Or so I thought. We made it 20 feet from the gate before a dog her height but much heavier came to say hi. They greeted each other properly and all was fine until a little dog came over to do the same thing. The two dogs wanted to play and graciously included Fern. Fern panicked and kept pulling back and the dogs kept pushing forward. Neither one of these dogs had any intention of hurting or biting, but they were actively chasing my panicked dog, who I still had on the leash. Thank goodness I was holding the leash because can you imagine what would have happened to Mika if she was knocked over by the dogs like I was? Oh yes, I hit the ground hard, in front of all the owners. Did 1 person get up to help? Did one person call for their dog? Nope, they sat and watched the 'Aimee sitting on the ground getting run over by dogs' show. I got up, used my knee to shove the dogs away and started walking towards the gate. They kept getting in the way, so I kept giving them stronger nudges. Finally the owner of the small dog came over and tried to get it, saying something about how it just wanted to play, but all I focused on was getting Fern out. If she wasn't 50 lbs, I would have picked her up and carried her.

Moral of the story? Everyone left safe and sound. I did not try to find the owner of the big dog because I would have caused physical and emotional harm, which wouldn't have helped calm my kid and her dog. We came home, gave Fern a bath and got M going on her 6 pages of math homework. (Her stupid math teacher seems to think that she should make up for two weeks of school work, that HE didn't send with us, in 1 night.) So I still have a dog with lots of energy and I'm not sure the best way to exercise her. Unless I want to take her to the dog park in the dark, mornings before work are out. I'll guess we'll keep walking around the neighborhood and hope it gets better. The trainer game me some great ideas to try for tomorrow's walk, so I'm sure it will go much better. It's amazing what Fern will do for cheese. :-)